>>Serious Question: Why can't we beg/negotiate for people marks, and how would you catch us?<<
Because it's manipulation, man.
How would I catch you? Well, some people post this stuff publicly.
Others send me copies of PMs they get from others (regarding the beggars). I take a lot of folks here at their word that the PM is real. Until they give me a reason to not trust them.
Why would you want to artificially increase your score, anyways? If it's not real, then what good does it do for you?
It seems to only really affect the OTC players here. They are the only ones bent on manipulating it. And that isn't cool.
So, let's play ball.
I'm proposing that if I catch you begging for people marks (publicly or privately) or doing anything to artificially mess with your rating, you are going to get whacked by about 20+ spots on the list. And have to rebuild it the right way from there.
And I'll bookmark anybody who catches somebody doing it.
Maybe we could also include number of posts deleted negatively affecting a rating. Makes sense to me.